On the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy announced the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., at a political rally in Indianapolis, forty years ago today. How he managed to come up with these words, I cannot fathom. Though riots spread among the great cities of the USA that night, Indianapolis remained calm, surely in no small part due to these words, and the attitudes of the fallen leader they invoked.

Two months later, Kennedy, also, would be dead.

Now, with the sting of racial hostility again in the news, may our generation stand for the value and dignity of all people, as unflinchingly, as peaceably, and as insistently as did Dr. King.

Thank you, dear brother. Words often fail in the face of the unspeakable tragedies of 1968. One wants rather to scream “No” with the audience upon hearing the awful news. “Surely Martin cannot be dead?!?” And in one’s mind, a scream of equal horror, “Surely this thoughtful, eloquent young man will not suffer the same fate?!?” One reels in shock, yet again, struck as if by one of the missiles of hate that felled these two. “God, where were you in 1968? Why, oh Lord, why?” And then the words ring in our mind’s ears, Martin’s words from Memphis that last Saturday night, words of hope and purpose, of continuing to press on to the promised land; Bobby’s words from Indianapolis, words of heartfelt grief and profound wisdom and extraordinary grace. And in these words we hear the still, small voice, pleading with us to press on with the work of forgiveness and love and reconciliation, not judgment and hate and vengeance. It is altogether fitting that we revisit these words and their message at this time. One can only pray that someday we learn to live by the principles championed by RFK in this speech!